I’d had the sense to admit that I was out of my depth in the U.S.A. and needed a proper manager there. The new giant crew in the USA ran up a $15,000 limo bill before any one noticed, taking limos to Disneyland and to go shopping. We were big time now with big management. Everyone was even more pumped if that was possible! We rehearsed in L.A with the American version of the satellite crew and partied like there was no tomorrow. We were spending a fortune too....
While I was in L.A, trying not to let the pink hair dye run when swimming in the pool in the sun, I had a call from Krebbs’s people. I was to go to a Hollywood studio to meet with John Hughs the director who had made ‘Pretty in Pink’, a movie that had been instrumental in Simple Minds taking off in the States.
I felt as if I was in a movie too that day, driving through the gates to be met by John Hughs himself who took me to a preview theatre on the Lot. He played me the section filmed for ‘Ferris Bueller’s Day Off’ where he’s in the shower and it had part of the Love Missile 12’ mix playing in the scene. It was perfect and Hughs urged me to convince EMI to let him have the track for the film or, he said passionately as we sat there in the screening room, the scene just won’t work. He’d set his mind on that song and wanted it whatever it took.